Defining color terms

The Graphic Arts in general, in the field of color in particular, has manyspecialist terms and its fair share of jargons.Now before we begin working with color let's define some of those terms thatI'll be using frequently.I am going to limit myself to the color terms that Photoshop uses, the first ofwhich is Hue, which is synonymous with color, when we use terms like red, green,yellow, we are describing the Hue.Together with Saturation and Brightness the Hue is one of the three distinctattributes that makes up the qualities of a color.

If we look at the Color Picker, the Hue can be adjusted by moving the verticalcolor slider up and down and you can see that the numbers here are changing andthey are changing to reflect the colors' angle around the color wheel.The second of our triumvirate of Hue, Saturation and Brightness is Saturation,which together with Hue and Brightness describes a color.Specifically, this relates to the purity of the color and how much white contentthere is in the color.

If we look at the color picker, I'll put my color right there in the middle ofthe color field and if I move to the right I am increasing the Saturation, wehave less white content and if I move to the left, I am decreasing theSaturation, we have more white content.This is also referred to as the tint of a color.The next term is the Brightness, synonymous with luminance.Sometimes the HSB color model is referred to as the HSL, Hue, Saturation andLuminance color model, and this is the perceived intensity of light or dark in the color.

The brightness is related to how much black content there is in the color, andback to the Color Picker, if I move up, I am making the color brighter, and if Imove down, I am making the color darker.Value is the gray value of a color when the color is desaturated or when theimage is converted to the Grayscale Color Mode.We'll see that Red and Green have the same value, as do Cyan and Yellow.If I come to the Info panel, I currently have my second color to read gray values.

The gray value of the red is 69 %, the same as that of the green.If I move over what was formerly of the Cyan, its gray value is 48%;likewise, the great value of the Yellow is 48%.So those are the terms that I'll be using frequently throughout this course;Hue, Saturation, Brightness and Value.

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Released

1/4/2012

In this Photoshop for Designers course, Nigel French focuses on the tools and features in Photoshop designed for choosing, applying, and editing color. The course looks at concepts such as the color wheel and color harmonies as well as the practicalities of using the Color Picker, leveraging the power of color channels, and the characteristics of different color modes in Photoshop. The course includes exercises on correcting color, enhancing color, shifting and replacing colors, working with spot color channels, hand coloring black and white images, and designing with a reduced color palette.